In a previous U.S. Pat. No. 8,796,939 B1 (hereby incorporated by reference), by Curtis William Naumann, the inventor in the current application, the inventor addressed the issue that in poor lighting conditions (e.g. such as restaurants and bars that frequently dim the lights to set the mood) it is difficult to determine the amount and location of items dispensed from a dispensing device (e.g. salt shaker, ketchup bottle . . . etc.), read text and locate objects in the nearby vicinity.
In order to overcome these deficiencies, a system and method for providing illumination for a mobile dispensing device was described comprising two sets of lights and an accelerometer configured to detect the motion and tipping angle of the mobile dispensing device. The detected motion and tipping angle were then used to determine and then subsequently implement the desired illumination/lighting effect in the light sets.
While two sets of lights may be effective, for example, a closed ketchup bottle with a first set of lights associated with the side of the bottle (to provide ambiance) and a second set of lights associated with the top of the bottle (intended to illuminate the surface onto which the ketchup is to be dispensed) can be effectively used to read a menu or search for a lost item under the table as long as the cap remains on the bottle. That is not the case for other devices such as a salt shaker. A salt shaker typically does not have a means of constraining the contents within the dispenser when tilted into the dispensing position. As a result, if you were to try and utilize the lights associated with illuminating the dispensing surface for reading or looking for objects then you will end up with contents all over the item you are trying to read and/on the floor if that is where you thought you lost your item.
Therefore, there continues to be a need to read text and locate objects nearby where the first set of lights associated with providing diffuse lighting is insufficient to accomplish the task and the second set of lights is unusable for the task because the dispensing device does not have the ability to constrain its contents when the second set of lights, configured to illuminate a surface to be dispensed, is illuminated.